Victoria Grizzlies sound man Tom Grainger was in top form prior to puck drop on Monday night at The Q Centre, cranking out Van Halen’s Right Now and Won’t Back Down by Tom Petty.
The Grizzlies themselves seemed to take it to heart in the must-win scenario, playing the role of the Heartbreakers and handing the Alberni Valley Bulldogs a 9-2 pasting to draw one game down, 3-2, in the best-of-seven Island Division semifinal series.
Alberni can still clinch it tonight at home at 7 p.m.
On this evening, however, the Grizzlies were full marks out-shooting and out-playing the visitors badly, much to the chagrin of a busload of Bulldogs fans, who once again set up their Who Let the Dogs Out sign on a scissor-lift in the back of a pickup in the parking lot.
More like, who let the Fitzgerald triplets out as they collared the ’Dogs this time around, played before roughly 1,000 fans as the Grizzlies woke up offensively led by Gerry, Myles and Leo who collected nine points.
“That feels good,” said Leo, who had two goals. “We’ve had so many chances. Tonight felt unreal.”
It looked it, too.
“You can never predict a playoff series. Obviously, this wasn’t the way we pictured it going down,” said Grizzlies assistant coach Scott Hawthorne. “We knew there was going to be a Game 5, we just wanted to make sure there was a Game 6.”
Yes, the Grizzlies looked like a desperate bunch this time around.
“We talked about it after the last game, that maybe that’s what our group needs, that desperation that Alberni has been playing with for the last six weeks,” said Hawthorne.
The storyline had a similar theme as the last three games. Victoria failed to connect on a short 2-on-0 break real early and Alberni came right back down with Quinton Wunder opening the scoring 1:40 in.
But the Grizzlies peppered Bulldogs goaltender Connor LaCouvee throughout the first and he cracked at 15:00 with the shots 17-7 as Mitch Meek scored.
Then the snake-bit Fitzgeralds got into it as Leo buried the first of two on a gorgeous backhand at 18:47 and the Grizz led for the first time since Game 1. Victoria out-shot Alberni 21-7 in the first.
Jaden Schmeisser, Storm Wahlrab (with his dad Rick in the building from California), Garrett Forster (with a pair), Myles Fitzgerald and Jacob Kearley also scored for Victoria, which led 4-1 after 40 minutes. Darian Henry added a third-period goal on Nic Renyard for Alberni after LaCouvee was pulled following the 6-1 goal.
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